by Callie Rose
Then his mouth is back on me again, like he can’t bear to miss a second of it. He drags the flat of his tongue over the swell of my breast, then pulls the fabric of my bra down with his teeth. The garage is heated, but it’s not as warm as the house is, and my nipple peaks instantly in the chilly air, going so hard and rigid that it’s almost painful.
“Fuck!” I gasp, and Dax makes an answering noise in his throat. His mouth closes over my nipple, and I remember this. I remember what his talented tongue can do to me just by teasing my breasts.
Like I did the night we played poker, I grab onto his head with both hands, securing him in place and arching into his touch to give him more of me. His tongue lashes and flicks and swirls around my nipple, and my clit aches and throbs and burns.
“You were the sweetest fucking thing I’d ever tasted, Low,” he whispers, releasing my nipple to stare up at me with eyes like blue-green fire. “You still are.”
I’m breathing like I just ran a fucking marathon, my hips bumping up against his again. I’ve lost track of the fact that we’re in a fucking garage on top of a car. Or maybe I just don’t care.
Dax feels me straining toward him, pressing my clit against the hard outline of his cock, and a wicked gleam lights in his eyes.
“You’re sweet everywhere.”
When he drops his head again, his tongue trails a wet line all the way down my stomach, and as he undoes my button and fly, his mouth follows, tasting every new bit of exposed skin. He drags my pants over my hips, yanking off my shoes before peeling my jeans over my feet. And then he’s kneeling in front of the car, staring up the line of my body at me as cold metal meets the back of my legs, calling up goose bumps all over my skin.
Large, calloused palms grip my thighs, and my muscles tense against him as he spreads my legs. It’s an instinctual reaction, a survival instinct. I want him to put his mouth on me so fucking bad, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to live through it when he does.
He left my panties on when he pulled off my pants, and I can feel the fabric sticking to me, my arousal saturating the thin material at my crotch.
Still keeping his firm hold on my legs, Dax leans in and drags his nose along the fabric of my panties.
Oh, fuck.
He’s smelling me again. And this time, I’m sure he’s not smelling my pomegranate body wash or my citrus shampoo. He’s smelling me. The musky scent of my arousal, the scent of what he’s doing to me. My whole body shudders, and I press my legs together harder, trapping him between them as I grow more and more certain that this will ruin me.
Dax and I have danced around each other the longest of all four of the kings. Just like Chase, he’s got a funny, easygoing demeanor. But there’s something else in him too. A depth, an intensity that flashes to the surface every once in a while.
For Chase, the lighthearted demeanor isn’t an act—it’s who he is to the core. Dax sometimes uses it as a mask, hiding deep, intense feelings under his casual exterior.
But he’s not hiding now.
I can feel his desire for me burning like an inferno under his skin, can see it making the muscles of his back ripple beneath his Henley as he latches onto my cloth-covered pussy and sucks. The already damp fabric is positively soaked now as he draws it into his mouth, finding my clit through the thin material and circling it with his tongue.
When he draws the small bud between his teeth, a jolt of sensation sears through me, too close to the line between pleasure and pain to say which one it is. I buck against the hood of his Mercedes, my palms slapping against the cold metal and sending a loud bang ricocheting around the large garage.
“Fuck! Dax!”
We’re being too loud. The garage door is closed, but it’s not locked. Someone could come out here and find us at any moment.
But Dax doesn’t seem to give one little shit about that. He releases my clit from between his teeth and yanks my panties off, then buries his face between my thighs and eats me out like his last fucking meal.
There’s nothing for me to grab onto—nothing to hold me steady as the sensations batter me like a piece of driftwood in a stormy sea.
My fingers scrabble for purchase on the slick hood of the car, skating over the bunched muscles of Dax’s shoulders and back before threading through his hair again, gripping so tight I’m sure it must hurt.
But if it does, it’s a pain he likes.
Rough, deep noises resonate in his chest, and I like the sound of them so much that I pull on his hair harder, trying to draw more of those noises out of him, to make sure he never stops.
My pussy is clenching around nothing, and my entire lower half feels swollen, desperate to come. My hips are swirling and grinding against Dax’s face, but he seems to like that too. His hands move to grip my ass, lifting my lower body off the hood of the car as he eats from me, drinks from me.
I’m lightheaded, as if all the blood has left my brain, and sweet agony is building inside me—
When Dax stops.
His tongue halts its delicious assault, and he pulls back several inches. His lip are wet, and his eyes are dark as he drags his hands down over the curve of my ass, hooking me behind my knees and tugging my body toward him. My ass is practically hanging off the edge of the car, and my legs are shaking, my stomach clenching.
Dax wipes the back of his hand over his mouth and chin, which are embarrassingly wet—if I could find it in myself to be embarrassed about anything right now—and reaches for the button of his jeans.
“Don’t. Come.” His voice is low and ragged, and I get the feeling he’s been torturing himself just as much as he tortured me as he lapped at me. “Not until I’m inside you.”
“Then get the fuck inside me,” I gasp.
“Whatever you say.”
He chuckles, shoving his pants down his legs to free his cock. It’s thick and hard, and he strokes himself as he moves toward me. I spread my legs open wider, hardly caring how wanton I look sprawled across the hood of his car, my bra shoved down and my hair a mess.
He hooks my legs under the knees, lifting my hips easily as he lines himself up.
Then he thrusts forward, filling me up completely.
I make a noise that doesn’t even sound human, and Dax groans in satisfaction. He pulls out and slides in again, letting me feel every inch of him as he wraps my legs around his waist and leans over me, bracing his arms on the car’s sleek hood as he begins to thrust harder.
“Do you know what I thought to myself the first day I saw you, Low?” he murmurs, his voice rough.
“That you’d seen better tits?” I ask archly, trying to distract myself from the sensations spiraling through me, filling my whole body with liquid fire.
He laughs again, dropping his head to lick and suck my breasts, lapping at my nipples like he’s trying to make amends for anything bad he ever said about them. Then he angles his head to look up at me.
“No. I thought about this.”
“You thought about fucking me on the hood of your car?”
My words are breathy and uneven. I’m having a hard time thinking, let alone talking. He keeps driving into me, a steady pace that’s pushing me higher and higher.
Then he brings his mouth to mine again, kissing me like I’m the answer to every question in the world before breaking away to brush his lips over the shell of my ear. “I thought about having you in my fucking arms.”
There’s a raw honesty in his voice, and it makes my heart clench. The swell of emotions inside me sets off a domino effect, and before I can stop myself, I’m coming around him, grabbing onto him and whimpering as waves of ecstasy crash through me.
He doesn’t stop, driving into me harder as I tighten and convulse around him, and when the last shudders of my orgasm fade, he pins my wrists to the cold metal above my head and fucks me like he means it.
I can’t stop staring at him.
The beautiful blue-green eyes that hold both light and darkness.
The curve of his
cheekbone, the angle of his jaw.
The mouth that smiles so often but is now set in a determined line.
So much more is contained within him than I saw when I first met him. Dax is so many things.
And right now, most importantly, he’s mine.
He lets out a low curse and buries himself inside me, and as he comes, he wraps his arms around me and hauls me up off the car, impaling me even harder on his cock.
“This,” he mutters in a rough voice as we cling to each other, his face buried in my hair. “This is what I thought about.”
It takes several moments before I feel like I’ll be able to walk again—I used muscles I’m not used to needing as I braced my feet against the car’s bumper. When Dax pulls out of me and gently sets me down, he holds onto me for an extra second to make sure I don’t topple over. I wobble anyway as I move to collect my discarded pants, and he chuckles.
“All right, stud,” I shoot back at him, laughing even as my body flushes with new arousal. “Gold star for you.”
We clean up and get dressed, but instead of heading back into the house, Dax opens the driver’s door of the car and rifles around under the seat for a second. When he pops back out with a little plastic baggie of weed and some rolling papers, I perk up immediately. I haven’t smoked in a while, which is ironic, considering my stress level this semester has been off the fucking charts.
He rolls the joint and pulls a lighter from his pocket, and we lean against the car to smoke.
We pass the joint back and forth, and even though we just had sex, even though his cum is still inside me, little sparks of energy zap between our fingers every time we touch. Our hands linger, holding the contact longer than necessary, soaking up these little pieces of each other every time our atoms collide.
I told my mom the truth earlier.
I care about these boys. I trust them to have my back.
And it’s a good goddamn thing I have their help.
Because come Monday, I’m going to need it.
18
I don’t know why, but between Dax and Chase, Dax is almost always the one who drives.
Chase has a car though, a dark red Aston Martin that sits in the garage next to Dax’s gray Mercedes. And he lets me borrow it early on Monday morning, walking down the stairs with me and escorting me out to the garage.
It’s a testament to how worried the kings were about me after my accident—and how worried they all are now—that he doesn’t crack any jokes about how I shouldn’t scratch the paint or anything. The roads are clear and dry, so at least I won’t be dealing with snow and ice on this little excursion.
Just… other threats.
“You ready for this?” he asks as he hands the keys over to me, using the opportunity to tug me into his embrace.
Something has shifted now that I’ve had sex with each of the guys. They touch me all the time now, and I touch them right back, our hungry bodies constantly finding their way closer to each other, as if we can’t ever get enough.
My arms wrap around his back, the keys clutched in my hand, as I tilt my face up toward his.
“Fuck, no. But I’m doing it anyway.”
He chuckles at my blunt response, but worry floods his eyes a second later, banishing the spark of mirth. “Be safe, Harlow.”
“I will.”
“I’m serious.” His grip on me tightens a little. “You don’t know how many times the four of us had to talk each other out of calling this whole thing off and tying you up to your bed so you couldn’t go.”
Nerves twist my stomach. If they’d tried to do that, I would’ve found some way to break free and snuck off to do this anyway. And I’m guessing they know that, which is probably a huge part of the reason they didn’t even try. But I don’t like this any better than they do. I feel like I’m about to barf.
Forcing myself into action, I rise up on tiptoes and kiss Chase quickly before turning to his car. Before I slide into the driver’s seat, I glance back at him. “I’ll see you guys soon.”
“Yeah. Soon.”
He backs up and watches as I pull out of the garage, and I lose sight of him as I head down the driveway toward the street.
The address is loaded on my phone’s GPS, and I follow the calm female voice on autopilot, my mind already skipping ahead, trying to foresee the future, to imagine the different scenarios that might play out.
Will Hollowell believe me? What will happen to me—and my mom—if he doesn’t?
My evil brain has no problem coming up with a million horrible answers to that question, and my hands start to shake on the wheel, so I turn up the radio and try to drown out my own thoughts.
The recent snowfall has melted a little, and the snow that remains is turning brown and gray. The world doesn’t look like a pristine winter wonderland anymore, and that somehow seems fitting as I make the final turn and head up the driveway toward Judge Hollowell’s house.
I turn down the music, as if I’m afraid he’ll hear me coming, and when I roll to a stop at the end of the drive, I stare through the large windows of the living room, trying to make out any movement inside.
God, I hope he’s home.
I came here early enough that he shouldn’t have left for the courthouse already, and also early enough to make sure he knows I haven’t met with Detective Dunagan before arriving. He has to believe that I truly won’t do that.
Okay. You can do this, Harlow. Just breathe and keep your fucking head on straight.
At least I don’t have to pretend to like him anymore. I won’t have to look at him with a blank, innocent expression on my face as if he’s just some friend of my mother’s who might be able to help me.
Those cards are on the table, and there’s no taking them back now.
Not giving myself the moment or two of stillness it might take to realize this is all a horrible, dangerous idea and back out, I shove open the car door and head up the walkway toward the front door.
As I ring the bell, adrenaline surges in my system, ratcheting higher and higher as I wait for a response.
It doesn’t take long. Maybe he saw me coming from an upstairs window or something.
Hollowell opens the door, and I can tell right away that he did see me coming. There’s no surprise on his face, only light curiosity and a smug sort of triumph.
“Harlow. Hello.”
He dips his head. His hair is wet, making the salt and pepper strands appear just a bit more vivid than usual, and he’s wearing a suit with the tie untied but draped over the back of his neck. I probably interrupted him as he was getting ready to head to work.
“Does the offer still stand?” I ask bluntly, refusing to waste a second making polite chit-chat with this man. There’s no fucking point anyway; the charade would be for no one, since each of us are well aware of how the other person feels about us. He can save his non-threatening nice guy act for people who still believe it.
Which, unfortunately, is way too long a list.
“Yes. It does.” The glow of triumph in his eyes flares brighter as he smiles slightly, and he tilts his head, the gesture almost sympathetic. “I’m assuming you’ve decided to accept?”
“Not yet,” I bite out. His calm control makes me furious. He always looks so unruffled, as if an invisible shield protects him and nothing in the world could ever hurt him.
I want to see him hurt. I want to see him desperate.
I want him to feel a fucking fraction of what I feel.
Hollowell raises an eyebrow. “No?”
“I want to talk to you first. To make sure I understand the… terms of your offer.”
The words stick in my throat, and I don’t even bother trying to hide it.
His smile grows, and he steps back, opening the door wider. “Of course. Come in.”
My body physically resists stepping over his threshold, as if I’m a dog afraid of a shock collar. But force myself to follow him inside as he shuts the door behind me and gestures to his left.
I glare at him but step toward the large, open space, finding a seat on the angular couch I sat on last time. The elk head presides over the room from its spot on the wall, and the little gray fox on the pedestal stands in exactly the same pose as before, its beady eyes bright and its nose lifted as if to sniff the air.
The sight of it opens a hole in my heart for some reason. And it makes me think of Iris.
Judge Hollowell killed her just like he killed that fox. He froze her in time. She won’t ever graduate or go to senior prom. She won’t go to college or get married or have kids. She’ll exist only in memories and photographs, forever seventeen.
“So.” Hollowell steps into my view, settling on the seat across from me and sitting up straight as he knots his tie. “What is it you want to know?”
Tears burn the backs of my eyes as I look over at him. “What happens when my mom gets out? After five years? What happens then?”
“Well, that would be up to her to decide, Harlow.” He shrugs as if that should be obvious, sliding the knot on his tie up to his neck. “She’ll have a criminal record, of course, and that may make it somewhat more difficult to find work, but it won’t be impossible.”
God, he makes it sound so fucking straightforward. So simple and easy.
“No, I mean, what happens with you?” I demand. “Do you promise not to hurt her?”
I’m crying openly now. Just being in this house is ratcheting up my emotions so tight it feels like I’ve got a fucking car on my chest. I suck in two deep breaths, wiping the back of my hand angrily against my eyes. I hate doing this. I hate letting him see me like this. Weak and vulnerable.
But more than that, I hate the sympathy that comes into his expression.
He sits forward on the chair a little, smoothing his lapels down as he gazes at me seriously.